Electronic components such as integrated chips generally produce heat when operating. The heat is then transferred to an object to which the electronic component is attached and/or to the surrounding air. However, cooling solutions may be necessary for certain electronic components to maintain the operational temperature thereof below a critical temperature, which if reached, the electronic component may either not operate efficiently or fail due to heat damage.
Various known cooling solutions for such electronic components can be used. A common cooling solution is to attach a heat sink to a circuit substrate such that the heat sink is thermally coupled to the heat generating components of the circuit substrate. Accordingly, the heat sink may be either in direct contact with an outer surface of the heat generating component, or in indirect contact through an intermediate thermally conductive layer. The amount of heat conduction between the heat sink and the heat generating component may depend on the contact pressure between the heat sink and the heat generating component. To maintain the contact at a desired contact pressure, one or more spring clips are typically used to mount the heat sink to the circuit substrate such that the spring clip biases the heat sink toward the heat generating component with a desired force. The spring clip is typically mounted to the backside of the circuit substrate and coupled to the heat sink with pins or screws through corresponding apertures in the circuit substrate. Accordingly, the heat sink may not be fixedly attached to the circuit substrate, but only maintained on the circuit substrate by the biasing force of the spring clip. The spring clip has a spring rate that provides sufficient contact pressure between the heat sink and the various heat generating components of a circuit substrate. However, the spring rate cannot be too high so as to put excessive pressure on the heat generating components. Such excessive pressure may damage some or all of the heat generating components.
Circuit assemblies that include a circuit substrate and a heat sink are susceptible to damage due to shock and vibration. In particular, because the heat sink may not be fixedly attached to the circuit substrate and be only maintained by the spring clip, any shock or vibration will cause the heat sink to correspondingly react relative to the heat generating components with which it contacts. Such reaction may cause a recoil of the heat sink against the heat generating components thereby causing damage to the heat generating components.
Therefore, there is a need for a device that can maintain a thermal management apparatus in a desired contact with heat generating components of a circuit substrate, while preventing the thermal management apparatus to damage the heat generating components during shock or excessive vibration events.